


Long Gone

by TheDoctorIsIcecube



Category: Class (TV 2016)
Genre: Discussion of Death, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Matteusz is a great boyfriend, Parents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-01-02
Packaged: 2018-09-14 05:57:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,257
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9165160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheDoctorIsIcecube/pseuds/TheDoctorIsIcecube
Summary: Charlie tells Matteusz about his father.





	

"When you're scared of the darkness, Charles, you only need to turn on the light. And if you can't do that on your own, I will do it for you." That was what his father always told him. Quill always called him the King Who Ruled With Terror, and it broke his heart because his father was the gentlest person he ever met before he knew Matteusz. Even Matteuez might not be quite as gentle as his father- the time he'd hit their headmistress with a candlestick sprang to mind- but he was a close second. He was always willing to curl up with Charlie, their legs tangled together, and stroke his hair as he told stories about Rhodia.

The only story he never told was the story of his father. His father, Charlethen IV. Anyone else close to him called him Charley. Charlie always talked about his mother, the queen, distant and powerful and always, always focused. She was a better leader for times of war than his father. His father was good in peacetime, good for diplomatic talks with foreign leaders and making friends with members of the court and sitting in the library and reading to his son. None of these were good qualities in wartime.

His father never saw the other side of the war.

"Was your mother born into the royal family?" Matteusz asked the question one day. Charlie had never told him about his father. Maybe he'd presumed that he was nameless and faceless. For some reason, he'd always hidden that he was meant to be the fifth of his name. He didn't know why he kept it secret. It felt almost sacred.

"No," Charlie said, shaking his head and then regretting it- the action made Matteusz's hand slip free of his hair, and he made a soft noise and nudged him until the hand was put back. "She was a noblewoman, a member of the court, and she married my father."

"Your father was born into the family, just like you?" He asked. Charlie nodded. He didn't really want to talk about his father or what had happened. It seemed silly to hold that as one of the worst things that had ever happened to him in light of more recent events, but sometimes he felt sadder about his father's death than the deaths of the souls. "You never talk about your father," Matteusz said softly. "You told me once that your parents never bothered combining with you...was he a bad person?"

"My father did, when I was younger," he said. "When I was little, before I was useful and when I was too much their child and too little a future tool in diplomacy. They didn't know how I would turn out when I was little." When he was a baby and he didn't grow properly and he got sick and couldn't learn how to speak. When they thought he'd die before his father, they'd treated him as their child. "My father was a very good person who loved me. That was a long time ago, I suppose."

"Did he die in the Shadowkin attack as well?" Charlie felt Matteusz's arms tighten around him when he asked that question, and he was once again thankful for his boyfriend's ability to know just how to comfort him.

"No," he said. "My father died when I was...when I was nine, I believe. Three days after my ninth birthday, which was the day the war started between the Quill and the Rhodia."

"Oh." Matteusz didn't say anything for a little while, just pressed lips to his forehead and stroked his hair. Then, "If you want to talk about it some more, I am here for you."

"He didn't want what happened," Charlie said. It was the story that he understood both from what his mother told him and what he remembered. "The Rhodia were, only a hundred years before I was born, a very expansive race. I've told you before about how the southern continents had huge levels of natural resources, particularly in building materials. My people took these from the Quill without asking, upsetting their natural development as an independent people."

Matteusz nodded, forehead creasing in a frown as he imagined what Charlie was saying. "So...your father, was he assassinated? By the Quill?"

"I'm getting to that," he said. "My father spent his whole rule attempting to make economic deals with the Quill. Eventually, the way they kept taking money without proper investment meant my father's advisors chose to declare war due to the increasing numbers of terrorist Quill entering our borders. He was shot during the speech." Charlie remembered that bit. He remembered sitting at the side, crying. He couldn't remember if he started crying before or after the shot. All he remembered after that was members of the palace's security team grabbing him and bundling him away somewhere safe, and he'd been crying a lot more at that point, screaming for his father even though he knew it was hopeless.

"I was meant to be up there," he said. "It was written into the speech that my father would talk about necessary sacrifice for the future. The shooter was there for me, they were Rhodian, I think, though we arrested only Quill for the murder. My father thought it was too dangerous to have me there. He turned around to motion for me to back away from the doors and the shooter got impatient."

Matteusz tensed then, and held Charlie tight. "I am sorry about your father," he said softly. "But I am very, very glad that they did not get you. You were just a child. And you will never deserve to die like that."

Charlie decided not to mention that he had often wished, especially as a young teenager, that he had died on that day. If he had, he never would have had to face all the terrible instances of war. He'd thought about that moment, too, when the Shadowkin invaded. He sighed, tilting his head up to look properly at Matteusz. "Maybe I didn't deserve to die like that, but neither did my father."

"No death is deserved," Matteusz said, kissing his forehead. "They killed him to provoke people, to make you sad. People do that on Earth too."

"I wish people would stop doing that," Charlie said, fully aware of how naïve of a statement that was. "It would have saved me a lot of pain...but then again, I don't think I would have ever met you."

"Why not?" Matteusz asked. "It was years before you came here." Charlie just shrugged. So many things could have been different during the war, and then with the Shadowkin too, there was really no way of knowing if he would have always met Matteusz. Matteusz seemed to sense his unwillingness to go into any further detail, and he tilted Charlie's chin up and kissed him firmly. "Well. Is a very good thing that you did meet me, yes?"

Charlie nodded and pressed himself closer to Matteusz. He was still grieving for his people, he grieved every day, but Matteusz made it easier to live through the anger that felt like it was eating him up at every moment. When Matteusz kissed him, he could ignore the desperation that froze his heart, the fear that bled into every thought. Matteusz was an anchor, something in this world that he could rely on, and Charlie swore to himself that he would never, ever lose him.

**Author's Note:**

> I've always found that Charlie's father is conspicuously absent whenever his mother is mentioned/shown in the first episode, and I wanted to write about it.


End file.
